Today is my first DUmp diving in a while. Its a candy store over there!!
Muy Moonbato (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3483248)

I am bothered by the numero uno thing too, but I hate all of those automated systems.

DUmmie sets itself up with:

skylarmae (1000+ posts) Thu Jun-19-08 11:48 AM
Original message
To hear this message in English, press one-Sick of this?
Advertisements [?]This morning I had an appointment with Comcast. The appt was supposed to have been cancelled, and when trying to verify this, the first thing you hear after welcome to comcast, is---To hear this message in English, press one. I am so sick and tired of this BS...

I called Comcast and sternly complained about this...Does this bother anyone but me? If America has English as it's official language, why should we have to press one to hear the automation recordings in our Country's language. And if you don't press one, why does it automatically default to Spanish?

Am I the only one who is bothered by this? Any suggestions about what we can collectively do to change this behavior?
I love my broadband.....

MonkeyFunk (1000+ posts) Thu Jun-19-08 11:49 AM
Response to Original message
3. America has no official language
and no, I'm not bothered by it.

bitchkitty (1000+ posts) Thu Jun-19-08 11:50 AM
Response to Original message
4. You're not the only one bothered by it,
but I don't have any sympathy for your dilemma. I would suggest that you find other things to occupy your anger.
Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top

RGBolen (1000+ posts) Thu Jun-19-08 11:50 AM
Response to Original message
5. There is no official language, a free person speaks whatever language they please. If you don't

like it just speak in Spanish with them. What's the problem?
Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top

brooklynite (1000+ posts) Thu Jun-19-08 11:50 AM
Response to Original message
6. Your rant is very important to us.....
Please stay on the line and your irate comments will be dealt with by the next available outsourced representative...

paxmusa (1000+ posts) Thu Jun-19-08 11:51 AM
Response to Original message
8. Are you being sarcastic?
Edited on Thu Jun-19-08 11:56 AM by paxmusa
The only people I have heard complain about this with real anger are my redneck republican relatives.

On Edit: And with all the grammatical errors, I sometimes wonder if what my redneck republican relatives speak is really English...

Uh oh,

BonnieJW (914 posts) Thu Jun-19-08 11:55 AM
Response to Original message
19. I am.
Before anyone accuses me of being racist or prejudiced, I am not. I grew up with Hispanics. Can you imagine moving to France and having everyone in France start speaking English for you? Or teaching your kids in English? Never happen. If you live in America, speak English and teach your kids to speak English. Embrace the American culture and practices, but that doesn't mean you have to forget your own. My grandparents came to America at the turn of the last century and they learned English at the speed of light. How else could they get jobs, buy things, get a place to live? No one was going to start speaking Russian for them.

If you don't learn the language of the country in which you live, it isolates you and causes suspicion and racism. Think about Little Havana in Miami. NO ONE speaks English there and many have lived there for decades. They only interact with each other; it's a microcosm. It defeats the whole "melting pot" ideal of America.

paxmusa (1000+ posts) Thu Jun-19-08 12:12 PM
Response to Reply #33
40. If English is such a dear topic to you, please correct the grammatical errors in your post #33...
I just get so irritated when people who speak English fail to use it properly and with respect. What do you think we can collectively do to change this behavior?

Patchuli (1000+ posts) Thu Jun-19-08 12:17 PM
Response to Original message
42. That is a mild irritation
compared to the Iraq Occupation and the destruction of our Constitution by *.

I also agree with the other poster who was more frustrated by trying to communicate with a telephone CSR in India.

Junebug68

06-19-2008, 03:09 PM

I hate hate hate press one for English :mad:

Shannon

06-19-2008, 03:44 PM

I have a rant for this ridiculousness. I'm out for a bit though. I'll be back.

biccat

06-19-2008, 05:04 PM

Any time I get on one of those stupid things I just either wait or press 0, *, #, or whatever else I can think of to get to an actual person.

If they ask, I tell them I'm on a rotary phone and pressing one doesn't help. :D

Penguins Fan

06-19-2008, 09:01 PM

Like it or not, Spanish is not going away in the US.

Puerto Rico has 4 million inhabitants. They are all American citizens.
They all speak Spanish. There is exactly one English language radio station in Puerto Rico. To my knowledge, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox have no television stations there. It's Univision, Telemundo and CNN en Español.

The people in Little Havana know English. They just don't use it much.

For what it's worth (one), my wife was born and raised in Colombia. She insists on speaking in English to everyone but her best friends. She speaks English better than like, well, you know, most Americans, like, well......

For what it's worth (two) we're raising our son to be bilingual.

For what it's worth (three) I use Spanish at the self-serve checkouts just to annoy people.

Phillygirl

06-19-2008, 09:08 PM

I have a rant for this ridiculousness. I'm out for a bit though. I'll be back.

Should I press one or two to hear it? And what kind of music will you be playing while we're on hold?

patriot45

06-19-2008, 09:18 PM

Like it or not, Spanish is not going away in the US.

Puerto Rico has 4 million inhabitants. They are all American citizens.
They all speak Spanish. There is exactly one English language radio station in Puerto Rico. To my knowledge, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox have no television stations there. It's Univision, Telemundo and CNN en Español.

The people in Little Havana know English. They just don't use it much.

For what it's worth (one), my wife was born and raised in Colombia. She insists on speaking in English to everyone but her best friends. She speaks English better than like, well, you know, most Americans, like, well......

For what it's worth (two) we're raising our son to be bilingual.

For what it's worth (three) I use Spanish at the self-serve checkouts just to annoy people.

This wasn't my rant, it was a DU rant. My bitch is with the whole automated answering thing, how many times did you waste 15 minutes getting to a point where you just had to hang up and start over!

Phillygirl

06-19-2008, 10:01 PM

Like it or not, Spanish is not going away in the US.

Puerto Rico has 4 million inhabitants. They are all American citizens.
They all speak Spanish. There is exactly one English language radio station in Puerto Rico. To my knowledge, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox have no television stations there. It's Univision, Telemundo and CNN en Español.

The people in Little Havana know English. They just don't use it much.

For what it's worth (one), my wife was born and raised in Colombia. She insists on speaking in English to everyone but her best friends. She speaks English better than like, well, you know, most Americans, like, well......

For what it's worth (two) we're raising our son to be bilingual.

For what it's worth (three) I use Spanish at the self-serve checkouts just to annoy people.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I still don't have a handle on the status of Puerto Rican citizens and how they relate to the U.S. in terms of citizenship, rights, and obligations.

As for raising your son to be bilingual...that is excellent. I always wished I was fluent in another language as a child (well, as an adult as well!). I could speak some gutteral Italian from my relatives...but mostly just the bad words.

Anyone that has the opportunity to learn two languages at the same time growing up is lucky and should do so. When my sister was born she and my parents lived in NYC and had a Puerto Rican land lady. The land lady would frequently babysit her and always spoke Spanish to her. My mother swore that my sister understood Spanish better than English as an infant/toddler.

enslaved1

06-20-2008, 12:11 PM

There is a simple answer. English should be the default, not the option. If one needs another language then you get the prompt to push a button. I would much prefer "Welcome to _____," the menu of options, THEN at the end "if you need Spanish, press a number". But then again, non-assimilating leeches annoy the snot out of me to begin with. What I would really prefer is "For options in Spanish, move your butt to a Spanish speaking country."